Spotify

[rick]

My point about the 50 60 and early 70
Was royalties paid to the artist was really low
And markets were comparatively small
That all changed in the 1970 with the mega rise
Of the LP .. Super group sales and market expansion
Which for a time allowed musicians to dictate
Terms and royalties which upped the poor Musos cut
Across the game forever

I worked for a label during the historic "best"
Time for record sales in the 1980
Everybody was complaining about money then

I reckon some people are just Better at making
Money
Some people better at making music
I would rather eat with the musicians
And the occasional good at both types

[ChrisW]

Of course I don't disagree.
I'd rather eat with musicians too, but I'd like them to be able to pay their share of the bill.

[rick]

Not being from here Chris
You may have been spoilt in that regard

[Gentleman]

I'm too big a fan of good music to give rats about spotify's royalty regime, I just love hearing the music, I'm an addict I'm afraid... No one is taking this off me! Listening to old punk/new wave before they got famous in the 80's. I can't get over how such poorly recorded songs, sound so good though, a great song, performance is what really counts though.

[ChrisW]

I'm too big a fan of good music to give rats about spotify's royalty regime

How do you get the 'good music' in the first place if you care little about the conditions of the people creating it?
Are you just a 'fan of good music' like it arrives from outer space, or should you be a fan of good artists - who make the music?

[The Tasmanian]

Amazing....
Not giving a rats ass for the artists (and their family's) - and their income from their past dedications to their craft?
Maybe you should go and do a decade of free full time work for a big business and help them get some more income at the expense of your time and dedication.

[jkhuri44]

oh dear...

[mylesgm]

Guess you should take your music off of iTunes and just give it away... no wait I'll give you $0.003 for it. Hope it didn't cost you much to make and you got all your gear for free too.

[jkhuri44]

you could just torrent the single

[Wiz]

I just checked my account.

I have had 462 plays on spotify and I made $1.11

hmmm

better than a poke in the eye with a pointy stick...

but all things being equal...

feh!

So, if I got 462,000 plays I could theoretically get $1,110 dollars.

I might need to live till I am 106


I aint whinging, I put my music on there...no one to blame but me...at least people heard it I suppose.

But, this kind of payment model, probably would destroy the professional recording industry, other than the home spun writer recorders like myself.

fargedifIknow

[Gentleman]

Sorry, what's all that whinging I hear, no wait, I can't hear cause the music is too loud.... Plus, everything I listen to, I bought as a kid on LP anyway, so spotify means I don't have to buy the bloody track again just to listen to something once or twice after a couple of scooners of cold chardonayfrom the 5l box. Plus, if I am forced to listen to some crappy song from the current top 10, which is almost always absolute shite, I don't have to further degrade myself by having to pay money to hear said shite!! Yay, winner winner, chicken dinner!!

[Alistair]

The enterprising tech genius internet musician could probably write some software to get the army of malware infected computers to automatically go to spotify and stream their tracks- that would be guaranteed revenue! I'm sure with that sort of tech power there are easier ways to make cash though.

I suppose when I think of the maths of spotify, I tend to think that-
0.003 EUR= around 0.004 AUD per play.
100 plays equals 40c
1000 equals $4
10,000 $40

Sounds pretty shit.

Let's say your song is played once on the radio- say Triple J. You'd be expecting a shitload more money than 0.004 AUD. But conservatively in Melbourne, there would be 200,000 people listening to the radio on their way to work in the morning (probably more like 6-700,000 but let's say 100k), and Triple J's share is around 7% of that market. So that's 14,000 people hearing the song, which would be $56 on Spotify. I haven't checked it in a while, but I'm pretty sure you'd be unlikely to get $56 per song per play on Triple J local. The maths against Spotify might change in the middle of the night, when you'd still get payed the an ok amount on Triple J and there's about 150 people listening to the radio.

You also hear of those ridiculous stories of 4.7billion people watching the Olympics and surprise surprise, Coldplays new song is launched just in time and played to some sort of emotional sporting scene before each ad break. I'm sure Coldplay get paid handsomely for there placement, but 4.7 billion spotify plays would be $18,800,000, which I'm sure they don't get!



Please don't take this as in support of Spotify, I think it sucks and I don't put up any of my music on it. None of the stuff I do is ever going to sell 100,000 copies, and I'd rather sell it via traditional means- CD's, direct downloads etc (that may not seem traditional, but I figure paying for downloads/paying for CD's is the same model). If someone is using it as their entire music collection, and relistening to records they love via it, the artist is getting majorly ripped off as outlined in the maths Chris posted, but I don't know anyone that uses it like that- I only know people that use it to quickly check stuff out and look for new music, just like we used to do on the radio!

I think royalties should go up across the board, and that a vast majority of the uses of music are never charged, and have never been charged- every cafe, shop, gym etc plays music 24/7, but I don't believe for a second they all pay their APRA fees. A huge amount of people don't value the work we do, and think because it's "fun" that it should be free. But unfortunately I'm not convinced that Spotify's royalty payments are actually that out of step with the rest of the world.

[ChrisW]

Lady GaGa earns $167 from Spotify:
http://torrentfreak.com/lady-gaga-earns ... cy-091121/

[ChrisW]

Yay, winner winner, chicken dinner!!

Do what you like of course.
I just want you to be informed about the service you are celebrating, and just to let you know there are very few songwriters and musicians who are celebrating with you.
What are studios without a healthy song writing and performing community. And how is the studio scene and the music community in Oz traveling of late?

[Wiz]

Lady GaGa earns $167 from Spotify:
http://torrentfreak.com/lady-gaga-earns ... cy-091121/

I don't feel so bad now

[chribble]

src: http://www.themusicnetwork.com/music-fe ... rofitable/

Q:
Will streaming services ever be profitable?

A:
Kate Vale
Managing Director, Spotify Australia and New Zealand
Absolutely they will be. We are still in our infancy and still in our start-up phase, but the bigger we get, with every single stream we play on Spotify it means we are giving royalties back to the rightful owners of that song. The bigger we get, the more people who listen, the more money goes back into the industry. One thing to keep in mind is that most of the users we get on board in any market are people who are downloading music illegally. If we can get them onto a service where we’re giving money back to the owners of that music, the better it is for everyone. Apps are definitely the way to go, and (streaming services) will revolutionise the way Australians listen to music. It’s definitely the future.

[ChrisW]

Err, please don't quote the fox when it comes to the safety of your chickens.
Did you seriously expect her to say streaming would never be profitable for artists????
She came to Spotify from Google, another great 'friend' of musicians. So she really has NO experience of the music industry, and has no track record of helping musicians in any way.

[jkhuri44]

google's unofficial slogan: "Dont Be Evil"....one of their companies tenants....i love how they do JUST the opposite.

[Gentleman]

If a song is really good and I like the Band, I always buy the Album. Spotify doesn't stop me from buying music, in the same way listening to the Radio doesn't stop me from buying Songs but actually encourages me to buy songs!! You guys are whining over nothing and have not thought this through.

[Text_Edifice]

What concerns me is that the innovative and interesting new markets and modes of business that might emerge haven't

Which ones would those be?

instead we're getting iterations of a model for the sale / exploitation of recorded music that is, historically, an aberration.

Since musicians have been getting ripped off since cylinders, surely it's not an aberration at all.

The sale of recordings for profit is less than 100 years old, and the current status quo has been so for even less time. Historically this is abberant – the point being that there's no long historical precedence which suggests that this is the way things will continue to be going forward. Further, based on similar disruptions of marketplaces due to technological change of the sort we've seen in the last 40 odd-years we should expect to be seeing different modes of creation, distribution and consumption and ways of monetising these as history suggests that existing models will become increasingly less-profitable as time progresses (which we're definitely seeing).

I agree with what I take to be Chris' point that musicians and studios as service providers are at the pointy end of the stick here and are often excluded from discussion on the pricing of recorded music – it often seems like the act of recording isn't priced in. I wonder if part of the reason for this may be that with such a large catalog of recorded hits to draw on there isn't the financial imperative on behalf of major labels to worry about the creation of new works when negotiating deals with streaming services – their catalog is money in the bank.

Complexity abounds here and others have spoken to point 2 so I'll leave it there.

In regards to the first point I think Chris or someone on here may have linked to David Lowery's presentation / notes that discuss the promise vs current realities of what's often erroneously referred to as the 'digital music revolution' ( http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/201 ... full-post/ ).

I don't necessarily agree with all the points Lowery argues, however taking p2p networks as an example – they have developed as a more efficient system of distribution for recordings online and way back at the start are purported to have approached the majors to discuss legitimate, commercial uses of their tech and user base. From memory the story is related in Greg Kot's 'Ripped' but I don't have the thing to hand so don't take this as chapter and verse.

Then there's the 'music like water' paradigm that was being trumpeted (futilely imo) for several years at various music industry conferences.

Then there's the business models that are emerging on our doorstep in SE Asia and further afield that have developed in context of ubiquitous piracy. In my experience (and I've worked in them) the typical approach is a mix of a patronage (sponsorship etc.), along with cross-media entertainment monopolies and modest 'physical' revenues.

[ChrisW]

If a song is really good and I like the Band, I always buy the Album. Spotify doesn't stop me from buying music

Great.

You guys are whining over nothing and have not thought this through.

We're not whining about anything. We're pointing out that Spotify wants you to use their service and NOT buy the record. Haven't you seen all the publicity that 'streaming is the future'?

We also know the facts. Many of them have been spelt out in this thread. One of the biggest current artists earns $167 from Spotify.
So while there is no doubt it's a great service for consumers (and musos are consumers too), it's setting a dangerous precedent for artist remuneration. Basically artists are saying it's barely better than being pirated.
So it's not me that's whining, or The Tasmanian, it's many artists in many countries where Spotify has set up shop.

[ChrisW]

By the way, there is a strong and persistent rumour that several major labels have a stake in Spotify's business. So they've sold musicians and independents down the river. Major labels aren't screaming about Spotify because they've used their financial clout to grab themselves a better piece of the pie than the rest of us.

[rick]

I will second that unsubstantiated rumour and throw in the words "universal" rumour just to start the dogs talking

[Gentleman]

If a song is really good and I like the Band, I always buy the Album. Spotify doesn't stop me from buying music

Great.

You guys are whining over nothing and have not thought this through.

We're not whining about anything. We're pointing out that Spotify wants you to use their service and NOT buy the record. Haven't you seen all the publicity that 'streaming is the future'?

We also know the facts. Many of them have been spelt out in this thread. One of the biggest current artists earns $167 from Spotify.
So while there is no doubt it's a great service for consumers (and musos are consumers too), it's setting a dangerous precedent for artist remuneration. Basically artists are saying it's barely better than being pirated.
So it's not me that's whining, or The Tasmanian, it's many artists in many countries where Spotify has set up shop.

Yes but it's the same as saying, "Stop playing my hit on the Radio because no one will buy it"!! Duh...

[The Tasmanian]

Its not Radio

[Chinagraf]

I will second that unsubstantiated rumour and throw in the words "universal" rumour just to start the dogs talking

Cough cough Warner cough Sony woof woof EMI cough woof pant pant
So where do APRA, ASCAP et al stand on all of this?

[ChrisW]

Yes but it's the same as saying, "Stop playing my hit on the Radio because no one will buy it"!! Duh...

You already admitted it's not like radio, in that you don't have to sit through hours of bubble gum to hear the odd quality track. And as i said, many are calling it the future of the industry,.

[Text_Edifice]

My understanding was this was part of the reason that spotify was the first in this marketplace to be able to offer major label catalog material. I believe they got a revenue sharing deal based on what they were bringing and also what they could exclude.

Streaming is a tricky one as it can't work like radio from a royalty payment perspective as it's not a one-to-many medium and trying to implement a radio style license based on plays / user-base would be crippling. My understanding is that this is what slowed spotify's growth and stopped expansion into new territories.

[ChrisW]

The core scenario seems to be to me that people are very unwilling to pay for music, having had it free for a few years now.
Spotify have to attract customers who don't want to pay very much at all. And therefore Spotify can't afford to pay musicians what their music is really worth.
I see it as a continuation of an unfortunate situation, not the white knight riding in to save the industry.
Again, a tech company are creating a business out of not paying musicians and studios the equivalent of the minimum wage (as legislated).
Never thought I'd see the day business valued me below an unqualified toilet cleaner.

[Ben M]

It’s incredible to witness the stamina and longevity that the local and international music scenes/sales
have gone through in the development and changes over the years, especially more recently. Most sane civilisations would have given up the ghost years ago, but somehow we have this amazing resilience and drive to see through all the bullshit and continue to create and develop awesome music despite the return. We must be mad or in love.

The model I’d like to see flourish is simply international and local music directories having direct links to artist’s sites and the artist is in control of their own database, sales, media, price point (and imagination). That price is determined by what material/format/concept they’re selling and how much they want you to buy it. The end.

Using Spotify is as good as owning the material you’re listening too but for a millionth of the price.

Now is the time for revolutionising the market... and this ain’t gonna cut it girlfriend (snaps fingers).